22. It's called a "Duty to Protect"

I'm not a lawyer or psychiatrist, etc., but am studying Health Information and have had lectures by licensed psychicatrists and psychologists in my classes. They stated in these lectures that if the psychiatrist believes that their patient might cause harm to others, that psychiatrist has a duty to warn (or Duty to Protect) the local authorities and/or the potential victim-not just the university. From what I understand, it varies in some states and these states only apply the duty to protect to "known" or "identifiable" victims. If the psychiatrist in these states does not know who the potential victim is, they have no "Duty to Protect".

Most of the states follow the Tarasoff ruling in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (1976)

I not sure if Colorado follows the guidelines that would include any unknown vicitms that the patient might harm. The University would have no way of detaining him, that I know of, but if Colorado does follow these guidelines, and his psychiatrist felt that he was a danger, and notified the local authorities, they could detain him or the psychiatrist could move to have the patient involuntarily committed.